But that evening, when, according to an arrangement of the village authorities, “Crappy Zachy” came to get Damie, and Black Marianne called for Amrei, the children refused to separate from each other, and cried aloud, and wanted to go home.  Damie soon allowed himself to be pacified by all sorts of promises, but Amrei obliged them to use force—­she would not move from the spot, and the magistrate’s foreman had to carry her in his arms into Black Marianne’s house.  There she found her own bed—­the one she had used at home—­but she would not lie down on it.  Finally, however, exhausted by crying, she fell asleep on the floor and was put to bed in her clothes.  Damie, too, was heard weeping aloud at Crappy Zachy’s, and even screaming pitiably, but soon after he was silent.

The much-defamed Black Marianne, on the other hand, showed on this first evening how quietly anxious she was about her foster-child.  For many, many years she had not had a child about her, and now she stood before the sleeping girl and said, almost aloud: 

“Happy sleep of childhood!  Happy children who can be crying, and before you look around they are asleep, without worry or restless tossing!”

[Illustration:  Benjamin Vautier TWO COFFINS WERE CARRIED AWAY FROM THE LITTLE HOUSE]

She sighed deeply.

The next morning Amrei went early to her brother to help him dress himself, and consoled him concerning what had happened to him, declaring that when their father came home he would pay off Crappy Zachy.  Then the two children went out to their parents’ house, knocked at the door and wept aloud, until Coaly Mathew, who lived near there, came and took them to school.  He asked the master to explain to the children that their parents were dead, because he himself could not make it clear to them—­Amrei especially seemed determined not to understand it.  The master did all he could, and the children became quiet.  But from the school they went back to the empty house and waited there, hungry and forsaken, until they were fetched away.

Josenhans’ house was taken by the mortgagee, and the payment the deceased had made upon it was lost; for the value of houses had decreased enormously through emigration; many houses in the village stood empty, and Josenhans’ dwelling also remained unoccupied.  All the movable property had been sold, and a small sum had thus been realized for the children, but it was not nearly enough to pay for their board; they were consequently parish children, and as such were placed with those who would take them at the cheapest rate.

One day Amrei announced gleefully to her brother that she knew where their parents’ cuckoo-clock was—­Coaly Mathew had bought it.  And that very evening the children stood outside the house and waited for the cuckoo to sing; and when it did, they laughed aloud.

And every morning the children went to the old house, and knocked, and played beside the pond, as we saw them doing today.  Now they listen, for they hear a sound that is not often heard at this season of the year-the cuckoo at Coaly Mathew’s is singing eight times.